WASHINGTON — Jay Leno, the iconic comedian and former "Tonight Show" host, appears to have injured himself again in another accident months after a garage fire that kept him from the Las Vegas Strip for months.
Leno told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that he had crashed a motorcycle he was repairing on Jan. 17, breaking his collarbone, several ribs and both of his kneecaps.
"Just last week, I got knocked off my motorcycle," he told the newspaper. "So I’ve got a broken collarbone. I’ve got two broken ribs. I’ve got two cracked kneecaps.”
But he stressed that he was okay after the crash.
"But I’m OK!” Leno said. “I’m OK, I’m working. I’m working this weekend."
Leno said he was working on one of his vintage vehicles, a 1940 Indian motorcycle, and had taken it on a test drive. While riding, he noticed the smell of gas leaking from the bike, and turned down a side street to investigate it.
“So I turned down a side street and cut through a parking lot, and unbeknownst to me, some guy had a wire strung across the parking lot but with no flag hanging from it,” Leno told the Review-Journal by phone. “So, you know, I didn’t see it until it was too late. It just clothesline me and, boom, knocked me off the bike."
The comedian is well known for his love of vintage cars and motorcycles, repairing them in his Los Angeles home and driving them around the area. But restoring old vehicles can be a dangerous hobby.
Leno has been recovering for months from burns caused by a garage fire last year. In November, while he was repairing the fuel line in a 1907 White Steam Car, a fire broke out in his garage. He suffered second-degree burns over part of his upper body and face.
Despite the unlucky streak he's had with injuries, Leno is still set to return to the Las Vegas Strip on March 31, when he will debut at a new venue: the Encore Theater at Wynn Las Vegas.
